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Earlier this year, I took part in a Shabbat service where women from Temple Sinai wrote personal, modern versions of the traditional prayers. Sinai member Karen Marker wrote a version of the Mi...
When my Dad, Ken Harris, was dying two years ago, we were fortunate he had enough time and inclination to plan his own funeral. Since he had a very eclectic religious life (born and raised Jewish,...
by Cantor Kim HarrisTemple Beth-El, Northbrook, IllinoisIn our "old" prayerbook, Sha'arei T'fillah - Gates of Prayer, that siddur which we fondly call "Gates of Blue," there is a particular English...
Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman of HUC-JIR was the visiting scholar this past Shabbat at Rodef Shalom of Falls Church, Virginia, as part of our 50th anniversary celebrations. After Shabbat morning services,...
I am a Jew by choice.
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When my son was born, I cradled him against my heart, arms wrapped gently yet surely around his small and fragile body. I would stand, holding him, our breaths mingled, our hearts beating in an...
Last Monday, it was my great honor to offer the invocation at the annual Massachusetts State of the Commonwealth Address given by Governor Deval Patrick. Here are the words that I shared:...
I'd like to do a series of posts on this blog about prayer. But, before I discuss specific prayers, I think we need to first discuss the concept of prayer itself. Prayer is about relationship - a...
by Marc Rosenstein(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Galilee Diary)Now available from URJ Books & MusicOrder Now!...How goodly, goodly are our tents;We will yet return to an...
It was hours before I would step on the bimah and conduct the Erev Rosh HaShanah service. As the nation was reeling from the cataclysmic events of 9/11, I lay upon the examination table of the...
As a rabbinical student, I was required to defend anintellectual argument for my personal belief in God, aposition which my instructor thoroughly annihilated witha few well-placed philosophical...
This morning I received a text message from my Aunt Linda saying, “I am doing well… love being home after three weeks in the hospital and rehab.” I almost replied, as if on rabbi auto-pilot, “I’ve...
Over the past three years, I have struggled with God. At first, when we started trying to have children, I didn't know anything was wrong. I was excited and I would pray to God to help us conceive,...
I've been thinking a lot lately about children who are sick. Their names rise up in my morning prayer; their images float before me during meditation. In my extended online community, there are two...
Jefferson Bethke's YouTube video, "Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus," has been viewed by more than 20 million people. Bethke raises questions about the intentions of Jesus and the nature of...
In these days awaiting decisions on Prop 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act from the Supreme Court, I share this psalm I've written as we wait.
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I had come to Israel to join my friend Anat Hoffman, who is one the leaders of the Women of the Wall. The previous month, there had been a random decree that as women were coming in, they were not...
Our God who dwells in the highest heights and in the souls of our feet:
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Following a court ruling in their favor, leaders of an organization pushing for women's prayer rights at the Western Wall have withdrawn their endorsement of Natan Sharansky’s compromise proposal...
This morning, we went to the Western Wall to pray with Women of the Wall for Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the festival celebrating the new month. Though a large group of progressive Jews were present, there...
This past November, I traveled to Israel as part of a NFTY delegation team in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Women of the Wall. Today, nearly three months later, I still don’t know how to...
This year has been an extremely difficult one for me. My 13-year-old son, the love of my life, returned from a summer visit with his father and announced that he wants to go and live with him at...
Guila remembers holding the prayer book for her father, who had cerebral palsy, every Yom Kippur. "What many might imagine to have been a dreary religious obligation was, for me, a highly emotional...
When I left for college my freshman year, I was nervous about exploring a new Jewish community. However, I immediately felt at home as I walked into my university’s Hillel’s Conservative Friday...
I woke up bright and early on Monday morning to head to the Western Wall with my students, participants in the NFTY-EIE study abroad program in Israel. At 7:00 a.m. sharp (OK, maybe we were a few...
Amidst the clashes
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During my first year as a rabbinical student, which was spent on the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, I began to see my homeland in a new light, a light that...
Some of my earliest childhood memories are of going to services with my family for Shabbat and other Jewish holidays. Although I often preferred to hang outside of the sanctuary with my friends, as...
Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I wrote this prayer in memory of my father, Lowell Jay Herman, who took his life on April 20, 2015, at the age of 72. It reflects the pain my family and I...
Last week, Orlando, FL, was not only the home of Disneyland, but also home to one of the largest Jewish gatherings in North America - the Union for Reform Judaism’s Biennial convention.
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Many of us have had those moments – of sitting with others in synagogue or during a private moment – when prayer seems flat. The words don’t seem to reach us where we are at that time or place;...
A rabbi with a black hat and beard once told me that a black hat and beard don’t make a Chassid, a pious Jew who goes beyond the law in fulfilling their duties toward others and God – and a...
Purim is coming, a wild holiday that holds its place alongside Yom Kippur and Passover as a dramatic story in the Hebrew Bible’s accounts of redemption and revelation. But, unlike these other...
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Brussels in the wake of today’s terrorist attacks.
Why can’t we remember what it feels like to wear a yellow star? A number? Oh, America, you're breaking my heart.
Say this prayer during Shabbat, learn how you can assist those impacted by the Louisiana flooding, and read more about how the Reform Jewish community is helping.
We hear the news of the massacres and the suffering, but will we listen? The world cannot continue to stand idly by while the death toll keeps rising. We cannot be silent in the face of yet another...
God Who Blessed our Mothers, we ask Your blessing now on women and men, parents and grandparents, children, and grandchildren as they prepare for tomorrow’s March for Women’s Rights in Washington.
My family and I recently spent time backpacking through Japan. Witnessing people at their holy sites, we were struck by how familiar their customs were to us as Jews.
“It’s true. All of it: The Dark Side, the Jedi. They’re real.”
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I’ve often been taught that as the people of Israel, named after our forefather, we are meant to struggle with God. It just never occurred to me that could include the struggle to remain upright.
At the Washington National Cathedral's interfaith prayer service to mourn the victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas, I offered the following words of comfort and prayer.
May the “Me Too” campaign of this week be blessed with the staying power to live well beyond the news cycle.
This Friday evening begins with a candle-lighting for both Hanukkah and Shabbat. Let us consider the customs and meaning of both holidays with this special prayer.
Say it when the priests go eat the sacrifice.
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Praying with the Women of the Wall is a very unique experience. On Rosh Chodesh Adar, I joined 200 other people packed into the very back part of the women's section with a dozen men standing on...
This Shabbat, we say Mourner's Kaddish for all those lives lost to gun violence thus far in 2018.
In 2005-2006, I worked in Afghanistan, and to get to work, I had to travel on one of the most dangerous roads in the world. This is when I started praying for safe travels.
